As is known in the art, advancements have been made over the past 20 years or so to understand, manipulate, and develop reasonable complexity receiver-algorithms for use with a multiple access channel (MAC). Much has been learned in the context of the MAC regarding the benefit of encouraging other-user-interference in a many-to-one scenario. The many-to-one scenario that is truly represented by the MAC formulation, by default, corresponds to having some level of coordination among users. Researchers have found that for this scenario, signature signal design, prudent assignments of users' rates and low overhead collision management lead to significantly higher throughput for the “interfere on purpose” mode of operation as compared to the main stream approach to avoid interference at all costs.
In parallel, the field of multiuser detection (MUD) has evolved to produce a plethora of receiver algorithms capable of decoding interfering signals with varying levels of implementation complexity for varying degrees of interference. A small sampling of such algorithms can be found in S. Verdu, Multiuser Detection. Cambridge University Press, 1998; R. E. Learned, A. S. Willsky and D. M. Boroson, Low complexity optimal joint detection for over-saturated multiple access communications, IEEE Trans. On Signal Processing, Vol. 45, no. 1, January 1997; and R. E. Learned, B. Hombs, M. Lande, J. Tranquilli, L. Russo, J. Farkas, J. Niedzwiecki, Y. Eisenberg, K. Connor, M. Sherman, L. R. Brothers, B. Pierce, J. DeBardelaben, Interference Multiple Access Wireless Network Demonstration Enabled by Real-Time Multiuser Detection, proceedings for the IEEE Radio Wireless Symposium, January, 2008.
Equally important, and perhaps more common, is the problem in which other-user-interference is not within one's control. This scenario has also been well studied over the past 10 years or so and is best modeled by what is referred to as an “interference channel.” The interference channel has multiple sender-receiver pairs, where the pairs are not related or coordinated with each other. One important difference between the interference channel and the MAC is that in an the interference channel scenario, each receiver is only interested in what its corresponding transmitter has sent.